Dead Flies and Circle of life

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

I'm not sure what the deal was today, but it was like a plague of flies. I must have caught and/or killed nine or ten14-15 in the house in the last 24 hours. And they pretty much showed up all sudden-like sometime last night. I was wondering if I had left some food spoiling in the trash under the sink or something but it turned out my friends RB and MJ were experiencing the same thing in their condo downtown, so I guess it's just some weird thing going down in the 'ham. Happy Fourth with-the-flies!

I was having a hard time catching them until after my run this morning, when I was finally able to take out my first one with a quick swat of the hand while stretching on the floor in the living room. I didn't really think much about it, and I hit a few more around the house as the day progressed, eventually finding several around one of the windows in the kitchen. It was at this point, two dead fly carcasses lying on the windowsill, that I noticed something odd. The ones there had already been somewhat remarkable in that, on more than one occasion, My blow had simply stunned a fly -- one would initially look as if I had killed it, its body motionless, legs angled skyward, but a few moments later, it would have righted itself and begun moving around the local area before I was able to finish it off with another frenzied set of whacks.

Anyway, another fly that I thought I had killed seemed to be moving, albeit somewhat strangely. And then I realized that *it* wasn't moving, it was that there were other things moving near it. And leaning in... oh god -- larvae*. Maggots. There was a whole ball of them writhing en masse away from the body. Still more were accumulating under the fly itself, moving it about haphazardly as they writhed their way out of their parent's dead body.

Fascinating. But exceedingly high on the ICK factor.

And then I remembered the other flies that I had swatted, and left, around the house...

I went back to the living room and took a look at the dead fly's body as I took it outside. There didn't seem to be any activity there. But when I returned and took a closer look around where it had laid, I could see them: tiny little squiggles, slowly spreading out across the living room floor. I wiped and squished, and, holy crap, I really hope I got them all, or a whole new wave is going to show up in a few days. Not to mention that the whole concept just totally gives me the jibblies: I'm sorry, your whole body filled with offspring, ready to burst forth as soon as you take any kind of injury? And if that doesn't happen, presumably at some point they're just going to decide that they're coming out, and well, thanks mom, you've been swell, but we gotta move out on our own.

Have I mentioned, iew?

And now I'm afraid of killing them, for fear of them spreading and multiplying -- I've been catching them and chucking them outside. And I can only hope that they're not finding their way back in.

*Actually, poking around online, they actually look more like eggs, which would make more sense... except that they're autonomous, which would make them even creepier. I don't think it matters. It's just gross.